Pygmalion (Headlong) : West Yorkshire Playhouse and touring
Feb 10, 2017 14:07:12 GMT
Nicholas, showgirl, and 2 more like this
Post by lou105 on Feb 10, 2017 14:07:12 GMT
I'd been wondering whether to post about this, and then I read a thread about some people's wish to read more about regional and touring productions . So! I saw this in Leeds and there are seven other venues ahead. The premise is: "Witness the transformation of Eliza Doolittle in a world where we can be digitally altered within seconds." Not surprisingly, then, it's all in modern dress, Higgins has much more technology at his disposal and there's a lot of digitised voice swapping to encourage us to consider our preconceptions. Eliza is given an accent other than Cockney, whereas her father is played as a Londoner, and of course the place names referenced in the script are all in London. Presumably that's not supposed to matter - we are just given a strong regional accent, rather than one in particular. More problematic for me was that Eliza had her modern clothes "upgraded" for better ones, but the "aspirational" social events to which she was sent were somewhat stuffy in the early 20th century and just seem plain unlikely now- how many of us have paid afternoon calls to drink tea out of social duty?!
Maybe I'm overthinking it but it seemed to me that making partial changes didn't really add as much to Shaw's version as was presumably hoped. Having said that, it's definitely a production to get younger audiences thinking, and there were scenes which i really enjoyed. I particularly liked Liza Sadovy as Mrs Higgins , in some amazing outfits and glass-box sets. The end scene was also strong, perhaps for me because the message at that point was clear, and i admired Natalie Gavin's skill at switching between accents, even in the same sentence!
Maybe I'm overthinking it but it seemed to me that making partial changes didn't really add as much to Shaw's version as was presumably hoped. Having said that, it's definitely a production to get younger audiences thinking, and there were scenes which i really enjoyed. I particularly liked Liza Sadovy as Mrs Higgins , in some amazing outfits and glass-box sets. The end scene was also strong, perhaps for me because the message at that point was clear, and i admired Natalie Gavin's skill at switching between accents, even in the same sentence!
